Your Right to Know

The state treasurer can refinance his home with a bank that does business with his office,
provided he doesn’t get special treatment.

Last week, the Ohio Ethics Commission OK’d the proposed refinancing by Josh Mandel and his wife.
The bank, JP Morgan Chase, will provide a letter stipulating that Mandel is getting the same
treatment as anyone else “similarly situated.”

Mandel, the unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate last year who says he will seek re-election next
year, hired a private attorney to obtain the informal opinion from the bipartisan ethics panel.
Commission members agreed to remove a reference in the draft opinion referring to an investment in
the bank by Mandel’s wife.